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Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Plot Doctor is in!

What’s my secret? It’s plotting. I'm a kickass plotter--it's something I love to do. It's like a puzzle that I get to change and shift until it fits perfectly together. What's not to love about that? So... if you have a plot dilemma, e-mail it to me at thrillersandkillers@gmail.com. I'll feature one or two plot problems a week on my blog and I’ll do my best to help you get your story moving forward again.

9 comments:

Maegan--What a great idea--thank you for creating this. I spend equal amounts thinking of my next plot turn, and how to thank you in my (very premature) book dedication!! Your plot ideas for me have been lifesavers. One of my favorites was how you laid an idea out--that worked perfectly--while you were on the phone with somebody! There have been times that i was absolutely stuck and you rescued my story. Sometimes i feel like i'm at a creek, and my story is on the other side. You drop the bridge right in front of me to get over so i can quit stewing and continue writing. I'll be writing my next section tonight... expect a holler!

Any writer, published or not, could benefit from Maegan's plot advice. She is, to use her eloquent words, a KICK-ASS plotter. I have benefitted many times from her brilliant insight and hope to continue to use her for inspiration whenever I get stuck. She rocks!! This is an awesome idea and a phenomenal resource. Thanks, Maegan.

Maegan, your help in figuring out how to "show" rather than "tell" my character's key epiphany was right on point! And you helped me tremendously with my brass-knuckled action scene too. I owe you in a big way. I will bring you all my plotting problems in the future. Thanks again!

HELP!!! I just wrote a scene where my protag hacked into a thumb drive of her recently murdered dad. She finds porn-pics her dad took of her childhood best friend. She knew this had happened--he did time for it--she just didn't know he immortalized it with pictures. She is shocked and horrified and grossed out. Now i need to move into a sequel of that & go into more emotion. I'm having a hard time because i'm trying to keep tension up, not do too much exposition, not too much "woe-is-me... this is so, so, so icky what i found". I tried to move on with her getting a plan of what she should do next, trying to ramp up tension, but i need more sequel. Got any ideas for how to do more emotion without the melodrama?

Plot Meister Maegan, can you help? I have a murder mystery where my protag Ben is just walking from scene to scene doing the talking head thing. I NEED ACTION. NOW! I have two people who want him out of town--if not dead. I need to turn Ben upside down and shake him until his eyes bulge, problem is, everything I end up writing is contrived rather than organic. I won't even send my current work to my sweet writing teacher who NEVER has a negative thing to say about anyone's writing, because even he will fillet me. ;-) I love the dialogue/cerebral scenes. How do I make action that is realistic and exciting?

What a cool idea. I will take you up on it and email my plot problem as soon as I finish NaNo. It is a problem with my legal thriller that I was revising just before I started NaNo this year. I look forward to your input.

Maegan: I’ve done it this time. I’m my own protagonist. I’m up a tree. I’m in a corner. There is no way out. I’m screwed. Heeelllppp!!! Here’s my deal: I need to fix some stuff throughout my book, giving my protag a major case & having her comment/work on it throughout. I sort of alluded to that a while back, didn’t follow up so well. So how do I weave that in? Do I go back & write it in now, or just draw a line in the sand & tell people to pretend it’s there? 2) I left last time that Todd is on the way to Ollie’s. What the frick happens when Todd gets there? He’s got some ‘splainin’ to do as to why he ditched her for dinner, but we’re not going there yet, he’s going to dodge that & she’s going to leave it alone for now. Does he get derailed going over there? He gets called out on something? (at 11pm? Better be huge—Peter’s dead--) Or, he comes over? What did Araceli tell him? I’m thinking that perhaps she was dating a cop. Of course it’s Boone. Of course, Todd doesn’t get that yet. Araceli probably makes some snide comment about Todd being Ollie’s squeeze & how stupid it is to date cops or something, and Todd gleans from that. Or maybe not even that—just that she was dating someone right before this happened, and Todd thinks there might be something to it. Or… something else? Any ideas? As always, thank you in advance for your guidance. You are, quite simply, awesome!